Things are wild at my house. If you live in toddler world, like we do currently, my heart goes out to you. My girls are now three and one and a half, and they run this place. I have no control. (Is this is a cry for help? I'm not sure yet.) There are toys and snacks everywhere, we're drowning in laundry, and I'm pretty sure little sis just ate some rocks - but the real issue at my house is my three-year-old's imagination. Before this girl is even fully awake each morning, she decides what world she is going to live in today (and what world we are ALL going to live in today). Some days, she wakes up and declares that she is now a horse, or a dog - and she begins to list the role everyone else will play today to support her in her new play identity. Some days she wakes up and she is a princess. My personal favorite is when she declares that today she "is Princess Jasmine, so my Mom is Aladdin, my sister is Abu (the monkey), and my Dad is Jafar" (sorry, babe). Don't get me wrong - I'm grateful for my girl's wild imagination that is entirely appropriate and healthy for her stage of life (middle school parents - your kid should probably NOT be doing this 😂). But sometimes it causes us some trouble. For example - "horsies don't have to go to bed, Mom." *insert biggest parent eye roll here * Unfortunately, I know where my daughter gets her imagination - me. My mother would tell you the same thing - my brother and I were always imagining new worlds we created and would get stuck in them and play for hours, rarely coming out of our room. I know my parents especially loved my imagination when it led to my drawing all over the walls with crayons (sorry, Mom). Lately, I've been thinking about my imagination and how it's still causing problems today. Sometimes, I imagine scenarios that create anxiety, and sometimes I imagine that people must be mad at me, sometimes I imagine what it'd be like to have more money. Recently, I've found myself imagining what it'd be like if American politics weren't so soul-crushing :)
And more often than not, I'm imagining the future of the church. I spend my time imagining what it could become. Imagining the beautiful, wonderful ways we could love the world if could just work together. Imagining all the ways it could lift and encourage world and community leaders. Imagining what could happen if we stopped arguing with strangers on the Internet. Imagining what it'd be like if the Church loved kids and outcasts like Jesus did. Imagining what could happen if we'd care for the Earth instead of believing God is simply going to abandon it. I imagine the beautiful possibilities of shutting off all the lighting and sound systems and if a celebrity worship leader would just tell us one time they didn't have everything all together. I spend time imagining what could be if we used all our resources to do something about injustice. Or if we could repent or apologize about things we've messed up. I imagine us being bold enough to speak truth to power instead of being power-hungry. I imagine women and girls around the world being encouraged to use their God-given gifts to lead and teach. I imagine how wonderful it could be if we lived like Jesus asks us to in the Sermon on the Mount. All that to say - I spend a lot of time using my imagination.
The problem is that all my imagining has gotten me in trouble on more than one occasion. People usually like the way things are - why should we waste time imagining something different? Of course, keeping the 'status quo' is in direct opposition to using your imagination. Indeed, I would certainly have a lot less doubt if I would just stop using my imagination. If I stop thinking about what things could be - what the church could be, what the world could be - and just be grateful for what they are, I'd just be so much more content, right? Maybe I could just stop asking questions then?
For me, Scripture is the most helpful place to turn when I'm at the end of myself. It anchors me to a story bigger than me, and reminds me of the ways that God's people have been using their God-given imaginations for many thousands of years. In scripture, we read of the prophets, whose main job, truly, is using their imaginations. To be clear, what I'm not saying is that the prophets are imagining God, but that the prophets are calling God's people to imagine a way of living alternative to the way that they're currently doing things. The prophets (Jeremiah, Isaiah, Amos, Ezekiel, and many more) call Israel out on their current way of life (that landed them in exile), as if to say, 'can't you imagine a better life for us than this?'
In fact, Israel's problem, and our contemporary problem, is this: if we can't imagine a different way of life than what's around us, what is common, or what is popular, we will end up resorting to living the way everyone else does. Israel often lost sight of the alternative way of life and community that God had laid out for them - to care for the poor, to only have one god, to not lie and steal and cheat one another, to be set apart, to remember their roots and to be selfless in a world that only cares about self, money, and power. God laid out for Israel a path to blessing & life (Deuteronomy 30:19) that was radically alternative to the way the rest of the world was going to choose. The prophets' job was consistently to show up and help Israel imagine this path that God had called them to. And their job was not simply to call out, criticize, and deconstruct. The job of the prophets was also to imagine a way forward from the mess, and reconstruct Israel's faith and hope. The book of Isaiah often flip flops between criticism and hope, as do the other prophets. The prophet's job was to have eyes open to the reality of the world so that, with God's help, they could envision something new and better. The truth is -
If I can't imagine a world where everyone has clean drinking water, it will never be. If I can't imagine a world where no one suffers from crushing anxiety, it will never be. If I can't imagine a world where I'm not addicted to my phone, it will never be. In order for anything to change, ever, someone with the ability to imagine and envision a better life or a better way has to come onto the scene. That is how the Old Testament prophets functioned. And this is one of the very goals that Scripture seeks to accomplish in our lives as well. Scripture helps us turn on our brains and hearts and imagine the kind of life that God desires for us - lives of peace, justice, joy, and human flourishing. The way of life that the prophets desired to hold Israel to and the way of life demonstrated to us in the flesh by Jesus of Nazareth is the only way to a better future for the Church. But if we can't imagine it together, if we can't see it, we can't work toward it. Hope requires imagination. The future of the Church requires imagination. Imagination is not the problem - it's the solution. The way of the culture, generally, is not working. I don't want it. I would even venture to say that the way of the American Church is not working. We need to be able to imagine something even bigger and better - the alternative way of life laid out & lived out by Jesus.
And so, like a three-year-old must exercise their imagination every day, so does the Church if it desires to be the Church that God dreams of. My daughter gets up every day and imagines the kind of world she wants to live in. I love that. So do I. I don't know how not to. If Christians could wake each day, in communion with God's Spirit, imagining a world full of hope, peace, freedom, justice, and compassion - the very Kingdom of God - we just might see it coming. Here on earth as it is in Heaven. God, help us to imagine what it is you want to see, be, and build next - in us and through us. Amen.
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