As we enter this long green season of “Sundays after Pentecost” here are some words of wisdom from All Saints’ Rector Mike Kinman on the gift and challenge of being a Beloved Intergenerational Community.

“Your young people shall see visions
And your elders shall dream dreams.” [Acts 2:17]

We heard these words on the feast of Pentecost … as the amazing diversity of our All Saints Church community poured forth in a myriad of different languages reading this text in a chorus that sounded like the rushing of a river.

Hearkening back to the words of the prophet Joel, Peter is describing what happens when God’s Spirit descends on and emerges from a community.

Your young people shall see visions
And your elders shall dream dreams.

Peter is giving us a profound reminder that God’s Spirit never rests solely on one generation. That it takes the Spirit working through multiple generations for the Church to be born and reborn and reborn in the world.

Later that Sunday, at the youth choir concert, we heard our young people say these words Common and John Legend wrote in Glory:

No one can win the war individually
It takes the wisdom of the elders and young people’s energy

The culture in which we live tempts us to view the world – and power – as a zero sum game. We talk of generations in terms of “turns.” As in … now it’s OUR turn. Which means … YOUR turn is over.

The truth of Pentecost is that the world is much more beautiful, much more expansive, much more interesting than that. Every generation has a role. And as time goes by those roles change as times change and our experiences and gifts change. And God’s Spirit breaks through as the generations work together to discern their roles … as they work to support one another.

New generations must be allowed to step forward and claim the power that is waiting for them. Their visions, their energy must be allowed to break lose and take shape and bring us to new places and new ways of being.
AND
That energy and the ongoing life of the community must be informed by the wisdom and dreams of the elders.

The offering of those gifts that have gone through the refiners fire of time and experience are not only what keeps us as a community rooted to the dreams that continue to develop from generations unto millennia but produce the offerings that only come to fruit after decades of living in this world.

During our Epiphany preaching series, Brinell Anderson embodied this when, before beginning her sermon at each service, she said:

In the custom of traditional African practice, I would like to acknowledge my place in the circle of life by asking an elder for permission to speak.

It was an acknowledgment that not only do the young stand on the shoulders of their elders, but that their elders are still offering in the community.

And just as important was the elder’s response.

Yes. Speak.

The elders’ joy is not to hold onto power and block the voice of the young, but from an honored position to encourage the voice of the young. To revel in their grasping power. To watch over them as they make their own mistakes and to offer their wisdom and gifts in ways that build up not hold back.

And the joy of the young is to honor and recognize the incredible gifts of our elders, and to receive them not as orders to be followed lockstep but as wisdom and strength and companionship for the journey.

And … for those of us in the middle. Those of us Gen X types who find ourselves between large generations, at once still nurturing the young and not yet with the status of the elder (and in fact often caring for aging elders while we are still raising our young) … our joy is to stand in the breach. To honor the gifts of each generation and resist the temptation to grab power for ourselves. To model that God speaks and moves through everyone, and that the most beautiful choir comes when one voice doesn’t overpower another but when all voices come together in harmony.

We are blessed with amazing people of every generation at All Saints Church.
Let us let loose the energy and visions of the young.
Let us be fed by the wisdom and dreams of the elders.
Let us, together, be born anew as the Church of a living God.