What an Imagination!


I love watching science fiction shows. Not the horror kind, but the kind that depict possible futures, exploring space, time travel and the like. Science fiction functions as a vehicle for people to think about alternative ways of living or ways to address current social problems. Some of my favorites have been TV series such as Star Trek (all the various series), Star Wars, Firefly, The Time Tunnel, Lost in Space, Aeon Flux, Solaris, among others.

What especially appeals to me is how these shows imagine and then depict a different world from that which I experience everyday. Occasionally the things imagined come true in “real” life. Think of the communicators from Star Trek. They look and act just like today’s cell phones. I’m still waiting for the convenience of transporters to be able to teleport to work, rather than just telecommute via computers.


The ancient prophets had a similar imagination. They imagined a world different from the one they knew at the present – their present. They said things like “the lion will lie down with the lamb,” “every valley will be lifted up and every mountain made low, the crooked places made straight,” “there will be no hurting or killing on my holy mountain,” and so on.

But this was no wild-eyed fantasy, these people were talking for God. What they claimed to express was straight from God’s imagination. This was the very imagination that looked out upon the vast nothingness before creation, before the Big Bang, before time and space even existed, and imagined a universe, gave it physical dimensions, governed it with laws, imbued it with purpose and meaning, and threw in the spark of possibility – endless possibility.

Humankind, in its tiny fraction of that vast universal drama, has pursued a particular set of possibilities as it has evolved and developed over the millennia. Those possibilities have arisen from the human form of imagination. Humans have built civilizations, crafted religions, established governments, dreamed up businesses, written vast libraries of literature, created great works of art and music. Entire societies and cultures have arisen out of the exercise of the human imagination. Jesse Jackson puts it this way: “If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.”

Therein lies the crux of the matter: getting our hearts to believe what our minds have conceived. Humans will go after that which their hearts deeply desire. Two and three hundred years ago, people in Europe and North America yearned for freedom to determine their own destinies and to live according the dictates of their own consciences. This yearning burned so hard that they fought revolutions, sacrificed their lives, but eventually changed the social and political landscape of the world.


If our minds can conceive it, and our hearts can believe it, we know we can achieve it. Advent is a time of imagining the kind of world that God imagines. God uses audacious means to implant that imagination within us. God gathers an aged priest and his presumed barren wife, a young betrothed couple, ancient prophets, shepherds and traveling astrologers to deliver the vision.

It isn’t science, and it isn’t fiction. It’s a world transformed from war into peace, hatred and enmity into fellowship and love, fractiousness into unity.
Huh.
Imagine that.

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 30, 2010 at 11:05 PM

    Hard Apologetic Science fiction authors David Conn (Lednorf's Dilemma) and Keith A. Robinson (Logic's End)do not talk about peace on Earth, they talk about thinking with deep foot prints.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Creating the Beloved Community

Over the course of the next three Sundays, January 10, 17 and 24, I will be preaching on The Beloved Community. Creating the Beloved Community was an idea that was central to the thinking and work of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Accordingly, my blogs for the next three weeks will explore aspects of Dr. King's thought and practice that relate to this idea. In addition, I'm going to explore how Dr. King's religious faith found expression in political and social action, all of it filtered through the lens of the Beloved Community. A good overview of Dr. King's concept is found in an article by Kenneth  L. Smith and Ira G. Zepp, Jr. entitled "Martin Luther King's Vision of the Beloved Community."  The King Center in Atlanta, Georgia is also an excellent place to find out about Dr. King's ideas and work. The Martin Luther King, Jr., National Day of Service has extensive information concerning the 40 Day Pledge of Nonviolence .  These are all good
Read more

Salt, Light and Congruent Lives

Image
Main Point for the sermon this week: There is power in religion to align our lives with our deepest values and beliefs. Matthew 5:13-20 ‘You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.  ‘You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.  ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others
Read more

Is the UMC an Old Car?

Image
When I was in graduate school in the mid-90s, I drove a 1980 Toyota Corolla. It had a standard transmission, manually-operated windows, and no air conditioning. But it was fairly dependable for the decade I drove it. During graduate school, it got me between Salem, Oregon, and Berkeley, California, at least once a month, as I returned home to see my family. The drive North and South could be a trial during the Summer months, especially in the Central Valley when the temperatures reached 115°. Not having air conditioning was a problem, so I figured out a system wherein I wrapped an ice cube in a bandana and wrapped it around my forehead, and drove with the windows down. The rapidly-evaporating ice cube cooled my head, but I had to add a new ice cube every rest stop. But it worked. It was not a glorious or glamorous car, but it got me dependably between Point A and Point B. I used it to take my German student friends to experience the Redwoods and to drive down Highway 1 to Claremo
Read more