imagination

Meant to write this a few weeks back. Mostly thoughts from a sermon I heard a few weeks back... should have taken notes.

What does it mean to "be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2)? That one day "young men shall see visions, ... old men shall dream dreams" (Acts 2:17)? Could it be that we are too easily content with the status quo, that "our lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak" (The Weight of Glory)? That as we get older, we naturally tend to be more conservative and less liberal in our thinking (not politically)?

What Jesus preached was nothing short of radical:
1) Whereas before, it was enough not to commit murder or adultery, Jesus asks us to go beyond that and asks us to examine our innermost thoughts and desires.
2) Whereas before, it was enough to keep an oath, Jesus asks us to go beyond that and let our yeses be yeses.
3) Whereas divorce is technically legal, Jesus asks us not to.
4) Whereas an eye for an eye is well and good (I used to think that this was a law of revenge, but it's not! It's actually a law of limited retribution. If someone takes your eye out, it would be inappropriate for you to kill their entire family and burn down their entire village, so it defines appropriate levels of retaliation), Jesus asks us to go beyond that and turn the either cheek.
5) Whereas before, there was a difference between Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female... in Christ, these distinctions no longer matter.

That was 2000 years ago, and most Christians now would agree with those teachings. But why did the church take so long to stand up for racial equality? Why did Martin Luther King Jr. need to write his "I have a Dream" speech? More importantly, how is the church too conservative today (again, not politically)? Are our imaginations too small? Are we loving God with all our hearts, soul, strength, and mind? Are we dreaming big enough?