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6 Epiphany Imagine it first, as a place free of painful memories, a place outside the searing failures and broken dreams that my litter your past. Imagine an existence where no longer do you feel excluded, or put down, or reviled because of your shape or your gender, your color or your age, your sexual preferences or your beliefs, your social status or financial standing. Imagine your life without the subtle and overt reminders that somehow you are inadequate, or worthless, or guilty, or wrong. Imagine with me what it would like to live in such a place. Imagine, then, a world where every tear is dried, where every loss is not final, where every wound is healed, where every injury is forgiven, where every breach of trust is restored, where every cancerous secret is thrown into the light of truth. Imagine a world without disease and famine, earthquake and floods, a world without war and terror. Imagine ourselves in such a world. Imagine our marriages and ex-marriages, our families, our unrequited loves, our lost opportunities. Imagine how different life would be. Imagine, if you can, a world without fear, the kind of fear that fuels despair, the kind of despair that gives birth to suicide bombers and bloated military budgets. Imagine a world in which no child wakes up this morning doubled over with malnutrition. Imagine a world free of violence and degradation and oppression. Imagine a world no longer fractured between haves and have-nots. Imagine a true new world order, not constructed out of the tired and bankrupt formulas of the past, no longer dominated by greed, and power, and enmity; but imagine a new world order genuinely founded on justice, peace, and integrity. Imagine a world with leaders bold enough to tell the truth, who will sacrifice present expediency and personal gain to ensure the future of this planet. Imagine a world without dying oceans, and poisoned skies, and toxic food, and catastrophic climate changes. Imagine this world, friends. Imagine it, and do not think it is a utopian fantasy. Do not dismiss it as a wistful dream, a dusty refrain from an old John Lennon song. For in essence this world comes from the imagination of our Lord Jesus himself. And Luke’s Gospel spares nothing in taking Jesus at his word. Blessed are you who are poor, he proclaims, and blessed are you who hungry, and you who are weeping, and you who are hated. Blessed are even all of you who cannot imagine the world can be otherwise, Jesus says. For Jesus imagines his world transformed by the power of the Spirit, and he commends his disciples to do likewise. It is true that so much of the culture we live in conspires to deaden our imagination and force us to accept the world as it is. So much of this culture seduces us into believing there is no other way. But our destiny as Christians is different. And we must continue to summon courage and wisdom and strength to be signs of contradiction. Over against those, in the words of the prophet Jeremiah this morning, who trust in mere mortals and make flesh their strength, we must place our trust in the Lord. Like a tree planted by water, sending its roots deep into the earth, drawing sustenance from the stream, our lives are meant to flourish in this trust. When the heat comes, as it will, and the scorching winds sweep down off the desert, our leaves will stay green and the life force will stay strong. We are invited, we are required to drink deeply of this living water. We are invited, we are required to nurture our imagination. Our baptism into Christ commends this, that we indeed receive inquiring and discerning hearts, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and love God, and the gift of joy and wonder in all God’s works. We are heirs of eternity. Our legacy is vested with God. In the words of St. Paul to the Christians in Corinth, our life Christ necessarily directs us to the life beyond this one. “If,” Paul says, for this life only we had hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” We are Christ belong to another kingdom, a kingdom whose very being is rooted in the structure of our imagination, a kingdom to which we, with in and with and through Christ, we aspire. This is a kingdom best visualized through a child’s eyes, and we are, all of us children of God. This is a kingdom we can see only if we allow ourselves to imagine it as children, and see the one who sits on its throne as our Lord and Savior. It is here we are called, to learn together the joys this kingdom gives and know this as the place we truly belong. So then, friends, let us take together these words of Luke and make them a declaration of our faith in God’s future. It is not easy to bring a child into the world. It is the ultimate act of faith. And likewise, it is the ultimate act of faith to recover our child’s imagination. You remember that song we all sang as children? Jesus love the little children, all the children of the world, black and yellow, red and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus love the little children of the world. Imagine, therefore, we are precious. That all God’s children are precious. The poor. The hungry. Those who weep and those who are persecuted. These are the most precious in the coming kingdom. And the only woeful future is for those who cannot imagine it otherwise. So let our imagination take root. Let us nurture it and let it grow. Our future as God’s children depends on it. And the future of God depends on our imagining it will be so.
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