LEADING WITH IMAGINATION
Isaiah 65:17-25 & Revelation 21:1-5
April 27, 2008 – Ordination and Installation of Elders
One of John Lennon’s most compelling songs was “Imagine.” It was idealistic, through and through, inspiring one generation and disturbing another. In its three verses, Lennon sang of a world that was undivided…a world community brought together through the abolition of status quo politics and nationalism, greed and possessiveness, and the end of religious extremism that discounts the importance of how we live now because of a preoccupation with what happens in an afterlife. An entire generation would fill stadiums and parks with lighted candles, imagining, at least for a moment, that one world at peace and filled with justice was a possibility. But then that generation assumed the reigns of power and responsibility and we haven’t done much better than the generations that preceded us. In fact, earth and its inhabitants may be in graver danger now than we were half a century ago. One wonders if we lost our ability to imagine.
If we have, we are squandering a precious gift. Imagination is that wonderful gift from God that allows us to entertain possibilities, to discern meaning, to see the beautiful and holy in the ordinary, and to be open to healing and wholeness that may take shape in ways that are quite different from what we may have expected. Imagination is at the root of all creativity and inventiveness. It is the ability to take what seems fragmented and unconnected and create an exquisite newness, as a master quilter can do. Or to discern a shape or a possibility and then chisel away at what obscures that possibility until it begins to emerge in a way visible to others, like a Michelangelo chips away at a block of marble until David emerges. …or is released as the sculptor might say. Imagination allows for the act of radical hopefulness that plants a sapling that will grown into a tree for a child to swing from many generations later.
John Lennon urged a generation to look beyond the present conditions of prejudice, fear, oppression, and violence and see a new world of inclusion, hope and justice, waiting to be released from those systems and structures that hold it captive. But John Lennon did not invent imagination. It is as old as history. Thomas Cahill, in his book The Gift of the Jews, writes of the act of imagination that broke out of the notion that life was just an endless and repetitive cycle. Abraham, in responding to the Holy restlessness of God, was able to imagine something new…a future…and Abraham broke with the past and did something new: he “went forth” in response to that call, as God’s people have been doing ever sense.
In the church, this gift of being able to imagine a new future is also linked to eschatological hope….the hope expressed throughout the Scriptures, including both texts today…that there is a someday that will reflect what is Good and Holy at the very heart of creation. This promise does not draw a radical distinction between this world and dimension and a future world or dimension. There is continuity. It is creation not as a noun but as a verb…the on-going process that is fueled and guided by the presence and power of God.
God has given us the gift of imagination so that we can be partners and co-creators in shaping the future. I keep remembering what Quantum Physicists Lothar Shaefer said at our forum last week: about the possibility that exists in every moment, every dimension of reality. It is a mind-boggling discovery of modern science and yet, in its implications, it is what the people of God are all about: taking possibility seriously and then leading the way into its promises.
So it would appear that we are here for a purpose. Our task and purpose is to be those who are always in process of imagining an alternative future and living it in the present. As we live it, it becomes real. Jesus said the Kingdom of God is among you. And it is. And through our imagination we are able to perceive it and through our commitments as followers of Jesus, we make it visible to others.
Today we are ordaining and installing a new class of elders to lead us in being the church. They will answer lots of questions required by our denomination. Carol, Jack and Alma, will promise to be faithful to the way of Jesus and live those commitments daily, they will agree to make decisions informed by Scripture and guided by the best of our confessional heritage, they will affirm collegiality, and then they will promise to serve God and God’s people with energy, intelligence, imagination and love.
That word imagination moves us beyond management into the world of possibility and newness in faithfulness to God. And who knows what exciting adventures await when we all “go forth” into God’s new world and into God’s future.